Geniuses like Nikolaus Otto and Rudolf Diesel came up with the bases of internal combustion and industrialists like Soichiro Honda built whole companies on brilliant engine designs. Still, it's these ten engineers who got the closest to engine perfection.

What he envisioned, designed and built was unprecedented at the time. If this man had never been born I doubt another human being would have carried this idea to fruition, much less dream it up with it in the first place!

You might dislike 13B's and their kind, but plenty of people continue to drive them, race them on strip and road courses, fly small aircraft powered by them and ride motorcycles motivated by them. People don't just like them, we love them.

9.) Hans Ledwinka

Austria gave us Hitler but also the man responsible for everything we love about Tatras, including the 2.5-liter air-cooled V8s. Tatras killed nazis by falling off the road, nazis copied Tatras to create the Volkswagen Beetle.

I'm a fan of Hans Ledwinka personally. Very, very clever 2.5l air-cooled V8. Only weighed…
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8.) Harry Miller

"Auto racing pioneer Barney Oldfield tries out the new Miller FWD Special as Harry Miller, builder of the race car, stands at left in Los Angeles, Ca., on May 13, 1932. The front-engined four wheel drive, which has a V-8 type motor and weighs 2300 pounds, will be entered in the Indianapolis Memorial Day race by the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company of Wisconsin, and Oldfield will be pit manager for the car."

If you know Indy history, you know how important Miller's mustache and overhead cam design was. The design not only won the Indy 500 dozens of times over the decades, but it provided the basis for Bugatti's legendary race-winning OHC motors, as well. The engine design was a team effort though, as Maxton86explains:

Leo Goosen is often overlooked. Perhaps because he had a low key and quiet personality, his boss…
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Leo Goosen is often overlooked. Perhaps because he had a low key and quiet personality, his boss Harry Miller and later Fred Offenhauser took most of the credit for Goosen's work. Goosen also did a lot of the work on the Ford 4-Cam Indy engine that Lotus used at Indy. Again Ford took most of the credit.

7.) Giotto Bizzarrini

Bizzarrini was an engineer at Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Iso Rivolta before founding his own company in order to ultimately outferrari Enzo himself. That didn't happen, but since he also designed the Lamborghini V12, it doesn't really matter.

6.) Tadek Marek

While it's hard to find a more British company than Aston Martin, their most famous engine designer came from Krakow, Poland. Marek worked for Fiat and GM before moving to England and start working on the Rolls-Royce Meteor tank engine.

A decade later, he joined Aston Martin and redesigned the Lagonda straight-six before creating the legendary Aston V8 that was used from 1969-1995.

Tadek Marek. Polish. Designed the Aston Martin DBR2 inline 6, which ended up being used in the DB4, …
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5.) Keith Duckworth

The founding father of Cosworth, Duckworth's DFV engine scored 12 F1 Driver's and 10 Constructor's Championships. That's not counting the engine's Le Mans and Indy wins, making him worth a few ducks indeed.

2.) Ed Cole

Chevrolet Chief Engineer and later General Manager Ed Cole, father of the Small Block Chevy. I…
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1.) Vittorio Jano

Born as Viktor János in San Giorgio Canavese to Hungarian immigrants, Jano's 4-, 6-, and 8-cylinder inline engines made Alfa Romeo and Lancia (pictured above) the dominant force on the racetracks using light alloy construction, hemispherical combustion chambers, centrally located plugs, two rows of overhead valves per cylinder bank and dual overhead cams.

He designed the first production V6 ever while working for Lancia and his V6 and V8 designs also replaced Colombo's and Lampredi's at Ferrari, starting with the Dino V6. Kösz Vittorio!

Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!